Yesterday, 5th June, Mihai Dobre Tone, one of the best pilots of acrobatics, lost his life at Clinceni airfield, near Bucharest. He was training for today's meeting at the same airfield.
Mihai was flying the aeroclub's Extra 300 YR-EWD and was 3 times national champion in aerobatics at only 23 years old. This year he was supposed to participate at European Aerobatics Chamionship and it was considered the best pilot that Romania has.
Unfortunately, his airplane, while trying to recover from an intentional spin, lost the control of the rudder. Mihai announced on the radio that he lost the rudder control, the pedal being blocked on it's right side. He entered a flat spin and with all it's efforts and knowledge he did not succeeded to recover the airplane's control. The Extra 300 crashed near runway 24 of Clinceni airfield.
Everyone that met Mihai or saw his aerobatics demonstrations had tears in their eyes yesterday evening. I was at the airfield half hour after the accident and everybody was shocked of the accident. His father saw his last moments, being a very good pilot himself. I can not imagine how it felt to see his son in that spin ...
It is a terrible lost for Romanian aviation and the world's aerobatics.
Images and videos of his demonstrations can be found on youtube and on yankeeromeo.ro (romanian)
YouTube - Hawks of Romania, Satu mare 18-19 oct 2008
YouTube - Mihai Dobre "Tone"
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